


chase winter from the human face

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [140]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Codependency, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Letters, Maedhros is nursing a wicked hangover but Fingon is an innocent baby who doesn't know that, Maglor is a mother hen, POV First Person, Post-the fic where Nerdanel visits for Mae's birthday, Separation Anxiety, Sickfic, Tea, like right after, title from Hugo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 15:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21102065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: What sort of budding doctor am I?





	chase winter from the human face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mythopoeia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythopoeia/gifts).

Despite my father’s many lessons in restraint, I fear I have grown up greedy. Finrod and I (and, of course, Maglor) had planned a birthday dinner for Maedhros, on the Sunday eve before the day itself, but I was, on Saturday afternoon, the recipient of a card marked in his delicate, spiked hand, begging leave to postpone the occasion.

The reason was apparent at the next morning’s Mass; Aunt Nerdanel and Uncle Feanor joined him and Maglor in Grandfather’s pew. I bit down my frustration and disappointment as best I could—even when Father decided it was better that we not so much as greet them.

Irisse didn’t seem to think I bit down on anything; _she_ said I was a perfect ogre all day. I refused to own to _that_, but on this, the following Sunday, I am near boiling. Only Maglor is in the pew, and now I am robbed of yet another opportunity to see Maedhros and give him his gift!

I bought the gift with my own money. Not just the pocket allowance that Father has given me every month since I was twelve, but money I earned by helping Grandmother Indis with odds and ends around her sewing room. Women’s work, Turgon sniffed, but I could not be affronted. Women’s work or no, it would fetch my best cousin a watch and chain!

Yes, I aimed to give Maedhros a watch and chain, and with this plan in mind I set out for the riverside merchants…only to find that my paltry coins could buy very little. Nothing rivaling the sort of piece my uncle trafficked in. Roundly ashamed, I settled for the chain alone.

I hope he will not mind. By Sunday, I have assured myself a dozen times that it is as good a chain as my father’s (though in my heart of hearts, I know this is not true), and thus my heightened feelings are dashed by the sight of Maglor alone. I seize his arm as soon as we are on the church steps.

“Where is Maitimo?”

“Good morning to you as well, cousin,” he says coldly, with the tilt of his chin that seems to have been perfected since his seventeenth birthday—but not before. “Maedhros—” I know that Maglor does not particularly favor my adoption of his brother’s family name—“is sick abed, and could not accompany me.”

“Sick?” My heart is wrenched. What sort of budding doctor am I, standing here like a fool? What good the chain in my pocket? It is no balm, no medicine. “What ails him?”

Maglor regards me with high color in his cheeks but lips set firm as stone. Then he makes as if to sweep away.

“Maglor, I am sorry,” I cry, not caring that Turgon and Irisse are standing, lofty in judgment, at the doors behind me. They are waiting for our parents. We children have a bad habit of darting out ahead; or at least, the others do. I am usually more decorous. “Please do not take offense! But what is wrong with Maitimo?”

Maglor bites his lip, a stolen habit. “He is laid up in bed,” he says carefully. “But I do not think it is anything too serious.”

What does Maglor know of medicine?

“Has he seen a doctor?”

“It was not necessary.”

I may be not quite sixteen—very young yet, as Irisse reminds me often, but I am not utterly devoid of occasional wisdom. If I fetch myself a pulpit in this moment, and lecture Cousin Maglor on his folly, I shall not get what I want.

(See? I am greedy.)

“May I come this afternoon?” I coax, with most humbly pleading expression. “I know a few tricks that may soothe.”

Maglor buries his pointed chin in his muffler, contemplating. April is biting today, though in a week we shall have May.

“Very well,” Maglor says. “I don’t think he’s catching.”

I shall rub my throat with liniment all the same, and go eagerly.

It was my purpose to leave directly from the church, after receiving my father’s approval for the plan. But lo, when I feel in my pocket for the precious watchchain—

“F-Fingon,” Argon blubbers, running to hide behind Mama’s skirts. “I’m sorry.”

Father used to chide me for my temper when I was small. (And when I was twelve, and thirteen, and fourteen.) I have aimed it more often against him, I admit, than I should—but I try to be patient with my siblings. Maedhros always is. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak a harsh word about his brothers, even rash Celegorm.

At the moment, though, it is all I can do not to shake Argon like a puppy. “What do you mean you’re _sorry_?” I am heartsick, for I already suspect that his apology, and my empty pocket, are somehow intertwined.

“I wanted to see the chain…and I wanted to wear it…an’, an’,”

“_Mon chère_,” Mama says gently, “Argon has lost your gift. He knows that he has done wrong. Your father and I will discuss how he shall be punished when we return home.”

Turgon and Irisse are watching, very grave and stiff in the church clothes that suit one but not the other. All I know for the present is that I cannot cry. I am too old to blubber, as Argon does—though his punishment will likely be no worse than a ban on pudding, or a favorite toy locked away.

I blink swiftly, my eyes smarting in the spring breeze, and startle almost as badly as a spooking horse when Father puts a hand on my shoulder. “You have my leave to make a day of it with your cousins,” he says. “And if you have need of another gift—” he presses a few silver dollars into my palm.

It is not like Father, to offer such sympathy. I am a little comforted. Comforted enough that I bid them good day, and do not scowl at Argon, who continues to whimper.

The house at Valinor Park is so forbidding from the outside, as if Uncle Feanor’s spirit guards it from half-blood intruders. For this reason, I like its innards much better. Maedhros could make any house feel like home. I do not stand on its steps, however, with any joy today.

Father’s silver dollars were wasted in my hands. I spent them on a hamper full of victuals: sour pickles and thick rye bread and half a ham. As if my cousins do not have all the food they need, and as if I should bring food into the house of an invalid before I even know what troubles him!

Maedhros is particular about food at the best of times. Here I stand, a wretched fool, with the cursed basket knocking against my knees and drawing the maid’s curious stares.

I am wondering what possessed me at the market stalls. Sometimes my hands and tongue move before my mind does. A bad habit; almost as bad as Argon’s habit of being spoiled and restless.

(I blush, to even think such a thought in Maedhros’s house.)

“Fingon,” Maglor says, from the top of the stairs. He has draped himself in a dressing gown of shadowy violet silk that I have not seen before. It is a trifle ridiculous, but Maglor is also very handsome, as is my uncle, I suppose, and it suits him. “Do come up.”

I set the hamper down; I lift it up again. I have walked these halls so many times; why am I awkward today?

Maglor raises an eyebrow at the sight of the hamper, but says nothing. Together, we tread the long hall until we reach Maedhros’s room.

Maglor knocks.

My cousin sounds like himself when he bids us enter. He does not look quite like himself, though. He is swathed in enough quilts to warm a frozen man, and the aureole of his shining hair on the pillow behind him is garish beside his pale cheeks. I drop the hamper with a tremendous crash and all but sprint across the floor.

“Fingon!” he says, warding me off with one hand before I topple onto him. He smells of fresh peppermint, of all things. Perhaps it is his digestion that ails him. Maybe Maglor _does_ know a thing or two. I shan’t say so. “_Cano_, you shouldn’t have come.”

The words would sting me, except I am too distracted by his hurts. The shadows under his eyes are dusky-dark. His eyes themselves are bleary.

“Maglor said that you were sick,” I answer. “And I did not know how gravely.”

“Not gravely at all.” There is a strange tightness in the set of his jaw; I realize he is clenching it. I frown, and then his tension fades away, and he smiles.

Are we always to be contrasts? I simply wish to be like him.

“Did you come as a man of medicine today, _cano_, rather than as a friend?”

I think with creeping horror of the rye bread and pickles and ham. I can feel my face flushing. I croak, “If you will allow me.”

Maglor, who has festooned himself in Maedhros’s armchair, scoffs.

But Maedhros grins, denting his ghostly cheeks with his mother’s dimples, and lifts his graceful hand again. “Have at my pulse, then. There’s a good fellow.”

It seems a prodigious honor, to have the charge of that slim, blue-veined wrist. I place two fingers against it, mindful of finding the hollow in the flesh that is not silent bone, and I listen by my touch.

I can’t—I know he is alive, because there he is, his eyes twinkling despite their weariness. Yet, under my clumsy hand, his pulse is stone-still.

“Perhaps there is something terribly wrong with me,” Maedhros says softly, when I shift my grip for the second time, without success. “Maglor certainly believed so last night, didn’t you?”

“Don’t,” Maglor snaps, rather savagely, and Maedhros subsides. His cheeks color as bright as mine must, but not with health.

“Ah,” I say, uncomfortably. “There it is.” I _don’t_ feel it yet, but soon I will, and I do not want my cousins to quarrel.

I _am_ fond of Maglor too, after all.

There are a number of culprits that could lay my tall cousin flat on his back. Heavy drink, of course, would make him look so—but this is Maedhros, who enjoys a tumbler of whiskey as much as anyone I know, and who is better at judiciously holding his liquor than anyone I know. I do not even ask such an insulting question. Instead, not releasing his arm—which, under the light sleeve of his night shirt, is too cool to the touch for my peace of mind, I venture, “Did you eat anything last night, that disagreed with you?”

That blush again. I wonder if he is feverish. “I did not eat very much, in truth.”

“He has not eaten more than a few mouthfuls this week past,” Maglor cries passionately.

“Maitimo,” I say, disappointed. “We have talked of this!”

He recoils at my admonition, hiding his face in his hair and pillow. “Don’t scold, Fingon,” comes the muffled plea, “My head aches.”

“Suffering _Christ_,” Maglor spits acidly, and slams out of the room.

I clear my throat. There are moments—moments I dislike very much—where I feel as if I am a stranger in my cousins’ midst. They have griefs and joys, even a language, that is all their own.

Maedhros lifts his head. “Fetch him back, please,” he whispers. “I owe him my apologies.”

“Not yet,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. “Maglor could never leave you alone for long.”

I roll up my sleeve. I look at him to gain his permission, and then I press my hand to his forehead.

He holds very still.

“No fever,” I say, relieved.

“You’re too good,” he says, his eyes falling shut. “Really, Fingon. It’s a headache and little indigestion. I wish you hadn’t worried yourself.”

“I hoped to see you at Mass.”

“I ought to have gone, but I was sleeping—Maglor did not wake me. I do not blame him, of course, but I haven’t any _real_ excuse.”

“You may not be feverish, Maitimo,” I tell him, as severely as I can, “But you _are_ ill. You haven’t a good color and your skin is too cool. You have been sweating, and I daresay you may have been sick.”

He nods briefly.

“And may be sick again, I’d wager?”

“Likely,” he whispers.

“I shall find you a basin, then.” And up I spring, eager to be of use. I am still embarrassed by my failure to find his pulse with the kind of ease an aspiring doctor should have.

“Never mind,” Maedhros says, when I have poked about the neat corners of his chamber with no success. He waves me off my quest. “The feeling passes already. You are my cure.” This is a worthy compliment, but his eyes keep flitting to the door, and I know he is thinking of Maglor. If I ask whether they have quarreled—

“Aunt Nerdanel came with your father, didn’t she?” I ask, taking up the bedside chair that Maglor might have vacated to come down and greet me. I hope that talk of his mother shall cheer Maedhros, but he picks fitfully at his quilt, his long fingers nervous. There is a pinched crease in his brow.

“Yes.”

I try again. “That must have been pleasant.”

“It was.” He turns his head to look at me, and says, with a quick, wry smile, “Are you growing your hair long, Fingon?”

I am at once tongue-tied and foolish, because my hair (in lengthening) has not fallen in a becoming wave about my forehead and ears; rather, it is stiff and brush-like and has my father threatening to take me to the barber whenever he is inclined to criticism.

“I have been very occupied with my studies,” I fib. “And I have forgotten to have it cut.”

“You must find the style that suits you best,” Maedhros says. “Not everyone is meant to be Byronic, dear.”

“I wasn’t trying to be Byronic,” I answer, a little indignantly. _That_, at least, is the truth.

Before another word can be said, the door crashes open.

It is Maglor, of course. He has the tea service with him—on a giant tray, in his arms, and it is about to upend itself and him, so I hasten to help.

“Tea?” Maedhros says. “Thank you, Macalaure. That was very kind of you.”

(This is how Maedhros makes his apologies.)

“Fingon brought you enough luncheon for a dozen of us, judging by the size of that basket,” Maglor says. At once, I regret offering my aid; he has called attention to the wicker monster that _I_ would have left unmentioned and unobserved.

But—

_Come now_, I say to myself. I am a coward, I know it. I have played nurse when I _ought_ to have explained the real reason for my visit, thwarted though it was by my littlest brother’s light fingers. I rise, standing with my feet planted apart, as I would to give an account to my schoolmaster—though there are no masters here—and clear my throat.

“It is I who must apologize,” I say, to Maglor’s confusion. Maedhros is watching me with a small smile—not a mocking one—playing at the corners of his lips. “I asked after you, cousin, so that I might give you your birthday gift, but it has been…it has been lost.” I nobly forebear for a moment, and then falter. “It was a watch-chain, and I think it was a very pretty one, and I—”

“Oh, Athair gave him one of those,” Maglor interrupts. “And the watch, too. Show him, Maedhros.”

Maedhros shakes his head. “I—I would have been delighted, Fingon, but you need not look at another now. What is a something like that, to your company and generous provisions?”

I do not glower at Maglor; I smile. Mama has taught me _some_ diplomacy. “I should like to see Uncle Feanor’s gift.”

I _must_ see it now; it is a point of honor.

“Here it is,” Maglor says, finding it immediately upon his brother’s desk, and what is there for me to do but marvel? The workmanship is exquisite. I am almost grateful, now, to Argon. My penny-piece deserved to be cast into the river.

“How wonderful,” I mumble. My voice is a little thick, despite myself. “It is very perfect, and I—I—”

“Do show us what is in the hamper, _cano_,” Maedhros says, leaning forward to seize the fiercely beautiful thing from my hand, which seems a rough paw in comparison. “You know I may be too fitful to eat very much, but no doubt Macalaure is starved like the wolf.” He tilts an eyebrow.

Maglor takes the armchair, attending to the tea-tray beside him. I open the hamper and begin to make what explanations I can for the spread that is contained within.

“I had five or six parcels in hand, and not all my money spent, but I could not carry _everything_, and I knew not which way to turn. An old woman who was selling pickled herring had the hamper at hand, and asked what my errand was. And so I told her that it was all was for my invalid cousin who was bedridden and unable even to attend Sunday services—do not fear, Maitimo, I made no mention of your name—and she was so struck with compassion she made me a gift of the hamper. It was awfully nice of her, I think.”

“No doubt she thought I was a woman in confinement,” Maedhros says, laughing. “But goodness me, you did not spend _all _your money, did you? I shall have many more birthdays, you know.”

“Not at this rate,” Maglor mutters, but when Maedhros’s eye falls upon him, he is doctoring the tea with lemon and cream and has an air of tormented innocence.

“I should have known better than to bring a feast to someone who is ill,” I conclude, gloomy once again.

“Ham and pickles are not quite a _feast_, Fingon,” Maglor points out, in his most condescending tone, though I note he takes the slab-like sandwich. “I can tuck this all away in our larder, if it does not suit. You meant well, I am sure.”

“You left him here alone,” I cry, “And did not call a doctor!”

Maglor seems ready to hurl a teacup at me with his unencumbered hand. “A doctor? You don’t know anything!”

“Please,” Maedhros says. He is drooping back against his pillows again, but there is a note of command in his voice. “I will take my tea with lemon, if you please, Macalaure.” His voice softens, in request. Then he looks at me, his smile warm despite his pallor, and my pique is forgotten. “Would you do me a terribly great favor, Fingon?”

It is the least I owe him, of course, but I am nervous, to be so tested. “Anything.”

“There is a packet of letters in my desk—will you find it?”

I am glad the star-faced watch is no longer winking at me in its proud glory. I discover a packet of letters, which is tied in baker’s twine, and I say,

“These?”

“Yes.” Maedhros smiles. “My brothers—they sent me a few notes with Mother. I haven’t been able to read them, yet.”

Maglor makes a strange sound, half a cough. One of the teacups clatters against its saucer as he sets it down.

“My eyes are a little tired,” Maedhros admits.

I trade the sheaf from one hand to the other. “Do you…”

“I should like to hear them in your voice,” Maedhros tells me, his chin lolling against his chest as he shifts one arm behind his head. “Maglor must be so careful, and cannot read aloud long. But—”

“Even Celegorm’s?”

He laughs, and I warm to see how humor opens his face with surprise. “If you don’t mind.”

“If you can make out Celegorm’s atrocious hand,” Maglor drawls. “Here, Maitimo, is your tea.” He has put his food aside, and is frowning at the cups he has in hand; I wonder if he poured cream and lemon in together.

“Take the chair again, _cano_,” Maedhros coaxes, gesturing with his untrapped hand. “And you may slough off your coat, if you wish.”

“Your _Sunday_ coat.” This, from Maglor.

“It _is_ Sunday,” I retort, now torn as to whether I should keep it on—but Maedhros’s opinion and my own comfort win out. I hang it carefully over the clotheshorse, lest it wrinkle. Maglor and his tea have retired to the armchair once more.

The letters are not even written on the same size or weave of paper. The Ambarussa—for so we call them in my family—have scratched notes on butcher paper, whereas Celegorm seems to have torn out the endpages of several poor books. Have they no proper stationary in Formenos?

I start, as bravely as I can, with the shortest of the pile.

_Dear Maedhros_,

“Ah,” says Maglor. “That is Curufin.” Without reason, he adds, “The little toad.”

Maedhros shakes his head so that a lock of hair falls in his eyes. He flicks it back with a finger reaching from above. “We have not even heard him out yet, Macalaure.”

_Dear Maedhros_, I try again,

_Athair and Mother will be gone three days, they say, but I daresay it may be four. The woman from Gillis farm is coming to stay. I hope she thinks it is only three days. Then we have the last for ourselves._

_Celegorm says we can make all the molasses candy we want. Caranthir has turned red four times today. I counted._

_Athair is bringing you a watch. I saw him make it. He drew the designs on with a blade finer than a scrimshaw knife, almost a needle. I want to do it. He said next time._

_Many happy returns._

_Curufin Atarinke Patrick Feanorian_

“They shall make themselves sick on molasses candy,” Maglor declares emphatically. “And Celegorm won’t pull it right. He never does.”

“I am sure Mrs. Gillis will set them to rights,” Maedhros says. His fingers are twisting in his hair, now, and his eyes are almost fixed on me—yet they look _through_, through and far away. “Whether Curufin likes it or not.”

“Read the twins’ next,” Maglor says. “That shall be amusing.”

_Dear Maitimo,_

_Happy birthday you are very old! Old as Athair (I, Amrod, say you are not)._

“That is the end of the letter,” I say, turning over the next sheet. Since I am softened towards Argon, now, the twins’ antics make me smile. “It seems they wrote separately after all.”

_Dear Maitimo,_

_Amrod ruined the first letter as you see. My spelling is better doubtles. Happy birthday. We took eggs away at Orome’s but he warn’t angry. When we did it at the Collinses, Missus Collins threattunned to whip us. Athair says no one shall, but I was worried. _

_The eggs were very fine we did not bring them home to mamai because they were taken but Celegorm fryed them in a rock oven. Have you ever seen a rock oven? Amrod says you have._

_There is a spring fole in the barn she has long legs like her mother and a soft nose. She will be Celegorm’s I think. _

_Do you know if horses miss people? I think the horses miss you. Alexander especially. That is right because he is your horse._

_Happy birthday as I said. Mamai is bringing herself as a gift but Athair has made you a watch. I hope he makes one for me someday, not to share with Amrod. Twins don’t like to share everrything you know. People say they do. _

_God bless ye and keep ye as we say,_

_Love and many kisses,_

_Amras_

“I wonder what Celegorm shall name the foal,” Maedhros muses. There is a peaceful cast to his features that is new and pleasing, even if I did not notice its absence a moment ago. “What would you suggest, Macalaure?”

“Ariadne.”

“Still amongst the Greeks.”

“Horses,” Maglor says pompously, “Are very ancient and very grand, and deserve to be remembered accordingly, I think. Also I like best to have a unit of creatures that are _named_ as if they belong together. Call it a poet’s preference, if you will—”

I interrupt him and begin to read the next letter.

_Dear_ _Maitimo,_

_Your not as old as Athair! Amras is a fool. Happy birthday and menny happy returns. I saw a fish in the brook but Celegorm said, too small to catch it is only spring. The snow all melted by Caranthir’s birthday but came back again, you know how it is. I miss you most when there is lots of snow and we can bild things of it like a fortress and a fat man who has cole on his face. Next Christmas we must make lots of snow things please rememmber I should like it verry much._

_Do you know that Athair made the watch for you with his best silver? He has been saving a piece and said No One But My Son Shall Have It. _

“It is rather fortunate that Athair gave you the watch _before_ you saw the contents of any of these,” Maglor interjects. “Or the surprise would have been spoiled.”

I think Maedhros flinches a little at the last word. I clear my throat and go on.

_Not much to tell but supper is a pie tonite a meat pie! How delishus it will be. I love you very much Godfather and send more kisses than anyone else! Ha!_

_Belovedly,_

_Amrod Pityafinwe Raphael Feanorian_

_P.S. Amras is not a fool he found a good button for my string and gave it to me. A.P.R.F._

“God,” Maedhros says, not moving, his hand limp and lost in the tangle of his hair, “I miss them.”

“They would be vexatious little brats,” Maglor reminds him, in a gentler tone than last he used, “If they were here.”

_Dear Maitimo,_

_I wish I could come with Mother and Athair to see you, but Athair says it is too much trouble to travel this time of year, all together. I do not see how that can be, for we have come down at Christmas and the roads are worse then. You will, I think, be pleased that I did not argue this point with Athair. I have taken your advice and do not try to show him why he is wrong. _

_(I still sometimes think he is wrong.)_

There, I have to pause, for I am biting my lips in my attempt to restrain my smile. When I look at Maedhros, he is smiling, too.

“Ah, yes,” he says. “That is Caranthir. He has a very practical mind, and I imagine he may be well-suited to the study of law.”

“Or mathematics,” Maglor suggests, with a yawn. “His letters always read like a sum.”

_The hens I hatched (two: their names are Dolley and Martha) are laying now. They do not lay so often in the winter and were slow to start, but I have gathered an egg each for the past month. I could have told you this in my last letter, but I wanted to make certain it was a whole month._

“You see, Fingon,” Maglor says triumphantly. “A sum.”

“He has Mother’s domesticity and Athair’s desire for perfection,” Maedhros says. “But he doesn’t think he is like either of them. Is that not strange?”

“Mother says he is rather like Grandfather Mahtan. But I remember _him_ being so loud.” Maglor wrinkles his nose.

“If there is a resemblance, she would know best about it.” Maedhros has turned onto his side, and tucks both hands beneath his cheek as would a child who shifts from prayer to sleep. “Keep on, Fingon. If you’re not too tired.”

_I am going to try to read the two books you gave me for Christmas. Studies have kept me busy and not inclined towards reading but _Two Years Before the Mast _looks interesting enough that even Celegorm says he will steal it from me. I won’t let him, which is why I have decided to read it now._

_I will write a longer letter soon, Maitimo, but I have been very busy helping Mother with preparing what we and Mrs. Gillis shall eat for 3½ days. Now it is time to give Mother this letter. As you know, it is especially for your birthday. I hope your birthday is a happy one and that we spend the next one together._

_Your brother,_

_Caranthir_

I lay that one aside and turn to Celegorm’s, for which, I must admit, I am somewhat eager. Celegorm is wild and rowdy and unkempt; Maglor says his hand shall be unreadable. Most of all, I wonder what he shall have to _say_. I am daunted, however, when I realize that his writing covers, front and back, _three_ endpages from the aforementioned, unfortunate books.

“Good gracious,” I say. “Celegorm’s letter is the _longest_?”

“He always writes a great deal to Maitimo,” Maglor explains, a little sourly.

Maedhros bites his lip, amused. The expression makes him look younger than nineteen; I hope the thought is not disrespectful, for I know he is both older and wiser than me, even when he is ill. “He does not have a _small_ hand,” he says. I can see that for myself. “And winter is over; I expect all manner of green and growing things have caught his eye and demand recounting.”

“Might I have a cup of tea?” I ask, trying to hide my dubiety.

“Indeed, you shall need it,” Maglor says, catching my eye with a sympathetic glance. We are similarly tested by Celegorm’s ways.

He hands me a cup, and I make my thanks, and I _choke_.

“Land sakes,” I sputter, “It’s _curdled_.” 

“Oh, come off it, and have another if you must!” Maglor snaps. “Am I to do _everything_ around here?”

“You’ve done too _much_ of everything, if you’re mixing enough cream and lemon to choke a horse!”

Maedhros sounds as if he is being smothered. I realize that he _is_, but by himself. He is laughing into his pillow.

Maglor snatches the cup from me, sloshing it badly over the sides, and storms back to his chair.

Maedhros says, “Well, there’s no use crying over…” and devolves into a fit of laughter again.

“You’re awfully giddy, even when—” Maglor begins, but he cuts himself short. “Hang it all. Read Celegorm’s letter, Fingon, if your precious tongue isn’t Sahara-dry.”

_Dear Maitimo,_

_It’s remarkable how many eggs I’ve counted this week alone! Have sketched a few in the margins for you to identify if you can. No clues, do it honestly! The twins are always begging and begging to be brought on my rounds, but I can’t trust them. They’ll crunch everything they find under their boots. It’s the same with mushrooms._

“Who gives a fig about the preservation of mushrooms?”

“So ruthless, _cano_,” Maedhros chides me gently, with an exaggerated cant of his brows and mouth—brows up, lips down. “Celegorm has a great affection for the natural state of the world.”

I try not to scoff. I don’t want him to think me hardhearted. But I _am_ thinking, all of a sudden, how Celegorm would be triumphant to see me here, tasked with reading his words aloud. Giving voice to his love for Maitimo, and not my own.

_But you’re not doing it for him._

This is the sort of wisdom I am trying to learn.

There are several pages more about roots and berries, a dreadfully long description of how easily a rabbit is skinned and what may be done with the pelt thereafter, and how he has plucked the best sap knots for chewing gum.

_I will save you a big lot of those, even though Curufin swears he’ll nab them. It’s half through April now and it’ll be more than half when you get this. So then it won’t even be another month before you’re home. Bully, isn’t it?_

_I hope you eat until you’re stuffed on your birthday, that is my favorite thing to do and I shan’t have less than a whole side of pork this year, I declare. _

_I’ll see you soon, Maitimo._

_It really will be soon._

_XXX_

_Celegorm_

I am a little ashamed of myself, and will not find fault with this. Celegorm is rough, certainly; he has not Maglor’s elocution or even my brother Turgon’s more stilted formality, but…

“They all love you very much,” I say, half reverently.

There is a strange change in Maedhros’s face. If it were not so deadly calm I would seek the basin again in earnest. But this is pain of another sort, and it lasts long enough that I must meet it, and wish to heal it—all the while chastising myself for whatever blindness prevents me from understanding it.

“Even Maglor,” he agrees. His voice is lighter than the look in his eyes. “Who knows me, perhaps, the best.”

I dare not look at Maglor. I shuffle the letters together in my hands, blushing.

“Thank you kindly, _cano_,” Maedhros says. His smile has returned, but he looks tired. “You do me no end of good. If I were not such a sad rascal, I would indulge in the ham and pickles you bartered for so valiantly.”

I did not barter at all. I know he knows that.

“More tea would be better,” Maglor offers gently. He comes between us with a cup in each hand. When I have taken mine, he puts Maedhros’s down on the table beside the bed, and busies himself with fluffing the pillows and setting straight the thrown-off quilt.

I drink. Maglor’s tea is fresh and steaming hot, clear of cream and fragrant with lemon.

Of my cousins, I understand enough.


End file.
